960 ADDENDUM — StK^TION X). 



down the east and west coasts, being recorded from nearly 

 all the districts under recent observation. It is common in 

 the southern colonies too, and arrives in numbers in this 

 island at the end of August or beginning of September. In 

 Western Australia Mr. Campbell has met with it in the 

 Houtmann's Abrolhos in December. It is nowhere more 

 abundant than in Tasmania and the Straits Islands, and 

 many non-breeding birds remain with us all the year round. 

 Dr. Holden writes me that he has met with it in every month 

 in the year on the N.W. Coast, and that it is most numerous 

 in the months of August and September. This Curlew 

 occurs as a straggler in New Zealand, but does not appear 

 to extend into Polynesia, where its place is taken by an allied 

 species, JV. femoralis. 



18. NUMENIUS PH^OPUS. 

 (Whimbrel). 



Scolopax phceojnis, Linn. Sys. Nat., p. 243, (1766). 



Scolopux bizoniensis, Gnielin, S.N., i., p. 656, No. 21 (1788), ex 

 Soiinerat. 



Nimieniiis uropygialis^ Gould, P.Z.S., pt. viii., p. 175; Handb. B. 

 of Au.str., ii., p. 279, (1865) ; Legge, B. of Ceylon, p. 910, 

 (1880) ; Ramsay, List Austr. B., p. 20, (1888). 



In treating of the so-called Australian Whimbrel for the 

 purposes of this paper, I still adhere to the opinion expressed 

 in the " Birds of Ceylon " that it is scarcely separable from 

 tlie Indian bird which is identical with the European. The 

 species inhabiting our coasts is admitted to be the same as 

 the Malayan and Eastern-Asiatic form, N. luzoniensis,Gv[ie\m, 

 and exam])les examined by me from Formosa have the rump 

 barred with brown in a similar manner to immature birds 

 from Ceylon. This being the main characteristic on which 

 Gould founded his Australian species (long previously, how- 

 ever, described by Gmehn), it cannot w^ell stand as a good 

 diagnostic until the breeding grounds of this supposed species 

 are discovered and adults ascertained to jwssess the barred 

 rump. The advocates of the Malayo-Australian bird as a 

 good species are Herr Meyer, Count Salvadori, and Mr. 

 Swinhoe, and I notice that Dr. Ramsay follows them, using, 

 however, Gould's synonym uropygialis. Lord Tweeddale, 

 Messrs. Dresser, Saunders, and other ornithologists unite 

 both forms. In adopting this course the geographical 

 distribution of the Whimbrel is a very wide one. Taking 

 that of the eastern race as the usual method of this paper, we 

 find the Whimbrel migrating as far north as Eastern Siberia, 



